


love in an elevator (livin' it up while I'm goin' down. . . .)

by beetle



Series: Twenty Kisses [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Awkward Flirting, Bicycle-courier Surana, Buttoned-down Alistair, Claustrophobia, Coitus Interruptus, Deadpool - Freeform, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time Blow Jobs, Gratuitous mentions of Bruce Willis films, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Marvel Universe, Meet-Cute, Mentions of Duncan, Mentions of Greagoir, Mentions of Spideypool, Past Relationship(s), Past Surana/Zevran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 09:25:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10694154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Young, upwardly-mobile businessman, Alistair Grey winds up trapped in a lift with a moody, snappish, claustrophobic bicycle-courier, on the morning after his promotion to junior partner at Chantry, Circle & Warden. But his day can only getbetterfrom there, right. . . ?Right?Written for prompt number nine fromthis list of twenty kiss prompts: one small kiss, pulling away for an instant, then devouring each other.





	love in an elevator (livin' it up while I'm goin' down. . . .)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Um . . . none, really.

“Hold the door, please!”

 

Smiling and nodding once, the only occupant of the lift reached out not to the row of buttons to the left of the closing doors—as Alistair Grey would have done—but to the doors themselves, letting the door sensors pick up the motion of his hand and smoothly halt, then retract the doors.

 

Alistair dashed into the lift, attaché clutched tight to his person, and heard a soft BING! as the doors began to close again. He turned to face the doors as they shut silently on the busy lobby of the Thedas Building and scanned the panel of floor buttons automatically, almost selecting his usual floor . . . but he remembered at the last moment to choose the one _above_ it.

 

It was going to be strange, getting used to being up one floor higher—stranger than if the floor had been drastically different, in which case, the sheer difference would have made it easier for him to remember that he was on, say, the fortieth floor, instead of the twenty-ninth—but Alistair certainly wasn’t going to complain about having to ride up to thirty. Nor about being made the youngest junior partner Chantry, Circle & Warden had ever had.

 

Grinning at his fuzzy reflection in the matte-chrome wall above the button-panel, Alistair straightened his red and gold tie—a birthday gift from his flatmate, Leliana, which he’d been saving to wear for just such a special day as the crowning achievement of his hard-scrabble, young life—and smoothed the left lapel and red pocket-square of his best grey suit.

 

He was running a careful hand over his perfectly-styled, blond undercut, when he realized he felt . . . observed.

 

Glancing over at the other occupant of the lift, he found himself blinking even as his eyebrows shot up in bemusement and a bit of shock.

 

Alistair hadn’t really _noticed_ the other man, while dashing for the lift as if it was the last train out of Dodge. But he was certainly noticing him, _now_. The man was, in his black and fluorescent green cycling clothes, bicycle helmet and sundry protective gear, and large messenger bag slung around his back, a bicycle-courier. He was compact, bordering on small, seemingly all lean muscle, from his slim, coat-hanger shoulders down to his trim waist and narrow hips, and long, sturdy legs.

 

Beneath his black and green bike-helmet, thick, neat, almost ice-white dreadlocks hung down his back, probably to his waist . . . though Alistair couldn’t tell because the messenger bag was in the way.

 

Last, but certainly not _least_ , under hair and helmet was an angular, fine-featured face, pale, under a light summer tan. Faint freckles were dusted across the bridge of an aristocratic nose. Below that was a bow-shaped, rose-pink mouth that curved in a crooked half-smile as the courier watched him with some amusement, from behind sleek, dark Ray Bans.

 

Flushing under a gaze he could feel, but not see, Alistair cleared his throat and turned his own gaze back to the panel of buttons.

 

“Was there something you needed help with?” Alistair asked politely, calmly, hoping that a nonchalant tone would be enough to make the courier stop _staring_ at him. But Alistair could still feel that hidden, yet amused gaze on him, as warm and tangible as summer sunlight.

 

“No,” the courier said in an unexpectedly low voice, with a foreign burr Alistair couldn’t place with just the one word. Then he laughed, rich and also low, prompting Alistair to steal another glance at him. The courier’s head was tilted back, mouth open to display even, white teeth . . . for a few moments, anyway. Then he was looking back over at Alistair, who managed to hold that shielded gaze with poise. “But if I told you _I_ could and would _gladly_ help _you_ , would that sound like a cheesy chat-up line, mate?”

 

Alistair blinked. Then flushed, facing forward again, clearing his throat. “Yes. Yes, it would.”

 

“I thought so,” the courier said, sighing. Alistair finally placed that low, musical burr as being Welsh. And _thick_ with it, too.

 

Another chuckle made every hair on Alistair’s body stand on end in a way that wasn’t exactly unpleasant. “Well, it nevertheless stands, my good man, that you need something I can happily provide,” his lift-mate said slyly. That burring, deep voice was both speculative and amused: not quite mocking.

 

“I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Alistair said with faux-serenity, his right hand smoothing his tie even as his left clutched at the handle of his attaché. It was his sword and shield—a gift from his late friend and mentor, Duncan Warden—and he had a habit of clutching at it when he was unnerved.

 

“ _I’m_ certain you don’t, either, my good sir!” Another chuckle and then, suddenly, the courier was standing in front of Alistair—he was a full head shorter, at least—grinning a wide, perfectly charming grin as he reached out and up for Alistair.

 

“Easy, mate, easy,” the smaller man said, his grin quirking into a crooked smile again as he held his hands up, palms out, in a universal gesture of harmlessness, when Alistair automatically leaned away from the unfamiliar touch. “Y’Windsor’s a bit wonky and askew.”

 

“ _What_?” Alistair demanded, blinking and nonplussed as the courier moved a bit closer . . . close enough for Alistair to faintly feel the heat of his rangy, compact body, and catch a whiff of his scent: mint and herbs, clean sweat and exertion-warmed skin . . . and, just teasing the edges of Alistair’s olfactory sense, citrus. As if the courier had eaten oranges recently, and their fresh, sharp scent had clung to his fingers and lips and breath. “I . . . _what_?”

 

“Your _necktie_ , man. It’s a bit—well, it could do with a spot of retying.” The courier shrugged, his hands—which were, Alistair noted, rather large for a man of his economical stature—still up, with palms exposed. There was nothing teasing in his smile, now, just an almost hapless camaraderie. “I mean, I imagine that, dressed so posh, you’re goin’ to an important meeting or some such, in which case, y’can’t go in looking like one o’clock half struck, can ya?”

 

“Er.” Alistair blinked again, then shook his head. “No?”

 

“Right,” the courier agreed firmly. The next thing Alistair knew, those large, wide-palmed hands were coming toward his throat. Long, tapered, deft-looking fingers went straight for the Windsor knot Leliana had tied for him this morning under Morrigan Korcari’s watchful, amused eyes.

 

(“There! Now, you look a perfect gentleman!” Alistair’s flatmate had declared when she’d finished with the tie. Only for Morrigan—the bane of Alistair’s existence—to snort and lean against the kitchen counter. Her pale eyes had ticked from her girlfriend, to Alistair, then back again, and she’d crossed her arms over her Joan Jett and the Blackhearts t-shirt.

 

“Leli, darling, the tie is made of silk. Not magic.” Then Morrigan had snorted again when Alistair stuck his tongue out at her. Which had prompted peacemaker Leliana to hustle her flatmate out the front door before her girlfriend could say anything else cutting and uncomfortably true.)

 

Too surprised and chagrined to even take a step back, Alistair made a strange sound high in his throat when the courier’s fingers, cool, callused, and dry, brushed his Adam’s-apple. There was a slight static shock that once more set every hair on Alistair standing on end, and a shivery _frisson_ bolting through him, from skin to marrow, and back again.

 

Suddenly that sunshine-focus was back on Alistair’s face once more, intent and intense, and the fingers that had settled on the Windsor knot fell away. The lift stopped with a lurch, rocking both men on their feet. Both regained their balance by taking a step back.

 

“Em,” the courier rumbled almost nervously, licking his full lips and grinning again. At the same moment, Alistair cleared his throat again and turned beet-red.

 

“Er,” he huffed out, high and cracking.

 

BING! Went the lift and behind the courier, the doors opened halfway between floors. Literally. Alistair could see legs in twill trousers above a pair of aging Oxfords behind the courier’s head. On the floor below that, he could see watery, overcast daylight streaming in from the lobby windows of the first block of floors owned by Imperium, LLC. Alistair could even just make out their horrible, baroque décor and shiny wallpaper.

 

“Em,” the courier said again, taking a step back, his own cheeks hectic-red. “I suppose this’s m’stop. Em. . . .”

 

Eyes widening, Alistair dropped his attaché and lunged forward, grabbing the startled courier by the arms, pulling him close to keep him from perhaps falling out the bottom half of the lift. The smaller man stumbled forward, his sunglasses sliding off his nose and falling to the floor.

 

Alistair found himself staring into a pair of wide, grey-green eyes, as large and luminous as old-fashioned croakers, fringed by long, pale lashes and edged with the faintest suggestion of crow’s feet from smiling and/or exposure to the elements.

 

BING! Went the lift again as Alistair stared and stared down into those shining, moss-agate eyes, which gazed unabashedly up into his own ordinary blue ones. The doors to the lift shut smoothly, silently behind the courier, but a minute later, the lift, itself, had not moved. But then . . . neither had Alistair or the courier.

 

“I think,” Alistair began absently, still mesmerized by those eyes—which widened as the courier listed toward Alistair a bit. “I _think_. . . .”

 

“What?” the courier asked breathlessly, lashes fluttering as if he needed to blink, but didn’t necessarily want to. He licked his lips again . . . a quick swipe of pointed, pink tongue. “What do you think?”

 

Just then, the lights in the lift went out, leaving both men in total darkness for almost five gobstruck seconds. Then, dim, yellow luminescence flickered on: one small emergency light in each upper corner of the lift. By that murky illumination, Alistair could see the courier’s wide eyes were wider than ever, with fear and shock. The other man’s body was rocked by a sudden, deep shudder that caused Alistair to instinctively, protectively tighten his grasp on the courier’s hard, tense biceps.

 

“I think we’re stuck,” he finished rather apologetically.

 

#

 

“So,” Alistair said, glancing over at the only other occupant of his own personal Purgatory. “Hullo. I’m Alistair Grey. And you are. . . ?”

 

The courier’s profile was grim, and he didn’t so much as twitch when Alistair offered his hand, leaning a bit across the few feet that separated them to do so. He just sat, wedged in his corner, clutching his messenger bag as if it were a life-preserver. His knee and elbow protectors had been removed and shoved inside the bag, making it even bulkier. But the courier didn’t seem to care.

 

“Erm,” Alistair said, withdrawing his hand after half a minute of being left hanging. “I’m a junior partner at Chantry, Circle, & Warden, up on twenty-eight through thirty-seven.”

 

The young courier didn’t even _blink_. He was staring straight ahead, his profile carven in stone, his gaze somewhat . . . glassy.

 

He’d been sitting that way for the past silent twenty-six minutes (according to the old-fashioned, wind-up watch-fob of Duncan’s Alistair wore to honor his memory). He had yet do more than breathe and occasionally shudder.

 

“Look,” Alistair began hesitantly, but with mounting concern, “are you alright? You seem . . . a bit shaken.”

 

Indeed, right on cue, the courier shuddered. But this time, the shudder came with the rare blink and a soft whimper. Another blink followed—or half of one . . . the other man’s eyes closed but did not open.

 

“I—” that deep, smooth voice was a hoarse, cracking croak. The courier licked his lips nervously, a small laugh issuing from high in his throat. It was more whine, than anything. “I . . . don’t like enclosed spaces for this long.”

 

“So I gathered,” Alistair agreed gently, scooting a bit closer to the shaken young man, until he was close enough to reach out and touch him without any real effort. “I’m not exactly a fan, either. Reminds me too much of my first flat,” he quipped, attempting to lighten the atmosphere with a smile, if not a laugh. But the courier merely made another whimpering sound and drew his knobby knees up to his chest, wrapping his rangy arms around them. Alistair tried another tack. “They can’t help but notice that we’re stuck. I’m certain they’ll have us out in two shakes.”

 

The courier barked another laugh as hoarse and cracking as his previous statement. “ _I_ know _that_. Of _course_ , I know that! I’m _not_ a fool,” he snapped, turning a narrow-eyed, defensive gaze on Alistair. “‘M claustrophobic, not stupid.”

 

Holding up his hands in surrender, Alistair decided it might be better to keep himself to himself, from here on out. “Right, then. Perhaps I should just . . . sit and meditate or something, till they get us out,” he said in his most neutral, calming tone. The other man snorted and turned away, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply with flaring nostrils.

 

“Perhaps you should.”

 

Stung, Alistair turned away, looking at his reflection in the wall below the button-panel. He could barely make out his facial features in the brushed, matte-chrome of the wall, but he could make out his fancy tie. It was crooked, now, thanks to the courier’s aborted attempt to straighten it half an hour ago.

 

Sighing, Alistair didn’t even bother with fixing it, or trying to. He was crap at tying ties—and apparently, so was Leliana—and usually stuck with the one knot he was passable at: the half-Windsor. But today being a special day, and all, he’d thought he might change the game up, a bit. When Leliana had suggested a full Windsor knot, he’d gladly accepted her assistance.

 

Little had he known he’d be spending his first morning as a junior partner trapped in an elevator with a surly, rude, claustrophobe, whose breathing was so loud and fast, it sounded as if he was being chased.

 

Really, the man’s breathing was quite pronounced and almost . . . panicked.

 

Frowning, Alistair risked a glance over at the courier and ventured an unwilling, bordering on resentful: “Are you alright?”

 

“Will ya stop _askin’_ me that, _Alistair Grey of Chantry, Circle & Warden!_” Flashing eyes the color of camouflage in the dim, yellow lighting, met Alistair’s, more scared than angry, and shining with what Alistair was fairly certain were tears. “What the bloody _fuck_ d’ya think m’ answer’ll be? _Oh, I’m bloody grand, innit? Puppies and roses! It’s like I’m on holiday!”_

 

His own eyes narrowing, Alistair bit out a stiff reply. “Pardon me for giving a toss about your welfare.” Turning back to his reflection—his formerly product-tamed hair was now sticking up, from running anxious, bored fingers through it repeatedly—he scowled ruefully.

 

He not-so-idly wondered if he’d get out of the stuck lift, only to discover the higher-ups had taken back his promotion and given it to that arse-kisser, Cullen Rutherford.

 

 _That’d be the way, wouldn’t it? The ol’ Grey Luck_ , he thought, sighing softly, letting his head thunk back against the lift’s anterior wall. He opened his eyes and stared up at the hatch through which—if this were _Die Hard_ , or some other reality-based thriller—Alistair would have already managed to make his escape, with the hot blonde clinging to him in gratitude and awe. . . .

 

Glancing over at the _blond_ next to him, who was glaring directly ahead with wide, once-more-glassy eyes, Alistair snorted.

 

He would’ve looked away again and ignored the prat but for noticing that there were tears rolling slowly down the courier’s lightly-tanned cheek.

 

Opening his mouth to once more ask if the prickly bastard was alright, Alistair almost immediately closed it again. It hadn’t gone over so well the last time. And Alistair was nothing, if not quick to learn from mistakes made.

 

“Do you like Bruce Willis movies?” he found himself asking the next time he opened his mouth. And in the silence that followed, he could’ve kicked himself. Instead, however, he merely braced himself for whatever snappish reply he got from the courier.

 

That bow-shaped mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments before the younger man exhaled heavily and closed his eyes.

 

“Not really,” was his weary, dull reply.

 

“Not a single one?” Alistair prodded in his most scandalized voice, scooting a few inches closer to the other man. “Not even _Fifth Element_?”

 

“ _Especially_ not _Fifth Element_ ,” was the quick reply, on the back of a huff. “My ex-boyfriend, Zevran, used to watch it obsessively.”

 

 _Boyfriend?_ Alistair thought, excited for no logical reason. Then he cleared his throat. “A man of good taste, I take it?”

 

The courier barked yet another mirthless laugh. “Only in boyfriends. When it came to cinema, however, his taste was _the worst_. And _Fifth Element_ was one of the _worst_ bloody films he ever made me watch with him. Even for an action film.”

 

“Piffle. _Everyone_ likes _Fifth Element_ ,” Alistair countered. The left side of the courier’s mouth ticked a bit.

 

“I suppose that makes me no one, then.” With a soft, sad sigh, the courier laid his head on his knees, facing right, away from Alistair, who found himself speaking rushed inanities.

 

“There’re some that say Willis’s film, _Hudson Hawk_ was one of the worst movies of all time. _Fifth Element_ , along with some of the _Die Hard_ s, _Pulp Fiction_ , and _The Sixth Sense_ are considered among his best works.”

 

Silence met this pronouncement. Almost five minutes of it, during which Alistair checked his watch seven times, sneaked glances at his lift-mate, tried to adjust his tie three times, and stared at his lift-mate some more.

 

“I rather liked _Hudson Hawke_ ,” a small, tired, too-young voice sounded in the loaded, expectant silence. Alistair blinked at the courier and received the surprise of his life when the other man turned his head back toward him. His wide eyes were open and reddened, his cheeks still slightly wet. “Never seen any of the _Die Hard_ s or _Pulp Fiction_. If I or any of the other kids were caught watching films like that, Greagoir would’ve—”

 

Eyes widening, the courier paled and fell silent, before closing his eyes and starting to turn away again.

 

“Never seen any of the _Die Hard_ franchise? Bloody criminal, is what that is!” Alistair managed to sound as light-hearted and dismissive as he could, neatly stepping over whatever unpleasant memory of this Greagoir-person he’d accidentally dredged up. It was enough to keep the courier from turning away completely. He instead stared ahead once more. So, Alistair kept talking. “That’s like never seeing any of _Star Wars_ or—or the Marvel Cinematic Universe!”

 

Frowning, the courier looked askance at Alistair. “I’ve never seen those, either—never even _heard_ of the latter one.”

 

Alistair’s gasp wasn’t entirely faked.

 

“Wow,” he murmured. “And here I thought never to meet an actual Amish person in the flesh.”

 

The courier cast a haughty look and huff Alistair’s way, but his lips twitched at the left corner again. Almost as if he’d repressed a smile. . . .

 

“Anyway, I take it you’re not a fan of comic books or graphic novels,” Alistair went on, but didn’t wait for an answer, certain it might bring up this Greagoir-person again. “Well, that’s a shame. I was _addicted_ to them. Still am, depending on the series. Mum used to bring me home loads of cheap, terrible comics, but every so often, when she had the quid for it, she’d bring home some indies, like _Preacher_ or _Watchmen_. Or even just Marvel— _The Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Spider-Man—_ even _Deadpool_ . . . until she looked through one, once, and then stopped getting them for me.”

 

The courier looked over at Alistair after a minute, blinking quizzically. But his eyes and cheeks were dry. “ _Deadpool_? What sort of comic is _that_? It hardly sounds like something for _children_.” His voice was unexpectedly prim, his earthy accent slipping into something startlingly refined and proper, for all that it still carried that musical lilt.

 

“Oh,” Alistair said, storing away this change in accents, from plebe to posh, for later consideration. “He’s decidedly _not_ , though most parents don’t know that. Or didn’t, before Ryan Reynolds turned it into a blockbuster film.”

 

“A film?” Those pale, obliquely-slanted brows shot up in disbelief. “About a _comic book_?”

 

Grinning, now, Alistair nodded. “ _Many_ films about many comic books. _Deadpool_ is just one.”

 

The courier huffed and laid his head back on his knobby knees. But this time, he was facing Alistair, his eyes wary, but curious.

 

“So . . . does the title refer to a pool full of dead bodies, or some such?” he asked, his nascent distaste evident. Alistair chuckled.

 

“Nothing so prosaic,” he replied, scooting a bit closer, still, to the courier, as he launched into an improvised introduction to the Marvel Universe. Attentive, changeable eyes, shaded malachite near the center, watched Alistair keenly, and a bit desperately. For a few moments, Alistair wondered what those mesmerizing eyes might look like as they gazed up at him from his bed . . . if they’d glint moss-agate, flash camouflage-green, or smolder this new malachite. . . .

 

Shaking his head once, to clear it of such silly and inappropriate thoughts, Alistair smiled gamely, and as innocently as if he hadn’t been entertaining sexual thoughts about a man who was clearly in crisis.

 

It was definitely distraction-time for them _both_.

 

“See, _Deadpool_ is the name of the hero of the series. Well—his _real_ name is Wade Winston Wilson, but he fights crime and unalives bad-guys under the name Deadpool. And he occasionally hangs about annoying The Amazing Spider-Man, and other notables of the Marvel Universe. . . .”

 

#

 

“. . . and despite everyone saying Ron Perlman was a shoe-in for the part of Cable, the studio’s going with Josh Brolin . . . who also happens to play a character called Thanos, in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. Which some people aren’t at all okay with—him doing double-duty as two characters in adjacent franchises—but if Chris Evans can play Johnny Storm in those horrible _Fantastic Four_ movies, then go on to helm _Captain America_ , I say: Why _not_?”

 

Alistair huffed and fell silent for a minute. Then, realizing he’d been speaking non-stop for almost an hour according to his watch—about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since the comic book canon might be a bit . . . _much_ for a newbie—he flushed and glanced at the courier, who was watching him with equal parts amusement, exasperation, and wonder. It was similar in tone to the looks Morrigan tended to give Leliana, missing only the fondness of long experience.

 

That look made Alistair blink and turn even redder. He fumbled while putting away his watch.

 

“Anyway,” he was quick to say, loosening his tie a bit more and smiling haplessly. “That’s enough about _my_ obsessions. Tell me something about you.”

 

The courier smiled, too, bemused and a bit sleepy. And far more relaxed than he’d been an hour ago. He’d even stopped glancing around them, as if expecting the walls to be closing in on them the moment he shifted his anxious attention. “Something, such as?”

 

“Your name, for starters?”

 

Frowning a little, he sighed. “That’s right. I know _your_ name—and your place of employ and position—but you don’t know mine.”

 

“I wait with bated breath.”

 

That smile returned, wry, now, and considering. After a few moments, the courier slowly straightened his left arm from around his knees and held it out to Alistair. “Daelyn Surana.”

 

“Alistair Grey.” Taking the other’s hand—dry and callused, like his fingertips had been on Alistair’s throat—and shaking it firmly, he noted the surprising strength of that hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, circumstances notwithstanding.”

 

“Mm.” The courier— _Daelyn_ —hummed, freeing his hand just as Alistair realized he’d held it for a few seconds longer than politeness demanded. “I’m . . . not un-pleased to meet you, as well, Alistair.”

 

“Such a ringing endorsement!”

 

Laughing, Daelyn sat up, stretching and contorting in place, until there were several cracks and pops, then slumped forward a little. “Well, our first meeting was a bit marred by technical difficulties, wouldn’t you say?”

 

“True . . . but we’re not so badly-met, aside from that.”

 

“That’s a pretty big ‘aside’!”

 

“Yes, it is,” Alistair agreed, chuckling again. “Though I must’ve made some initially favorable impression.”

 

“Is that so?” One platinum brow quirked up almost archly. Alistair smirked the way he might have just a few years ago, before he’d had to put away the cocksure, young hothead and become the man Duncan had claimed to see in him from day one.

 

“That’s very much so, Mr. Surana. After all, who was delivering cheesy chat-up lines to _whom_?”

 

Even in the murky, yellow light, Daelyn’s blush was fierce and bright. “I . . . said it _might_ sound like a cheesy chat-up line. Didn’t mean that it was,” he mumbled.

 

“Didn’t mean that it _wasn’t_ , either.”

 

Daelyn opened his mouth for a rebuttal, then closed it with a scowl.

 

“Well,” he finally said a couple minutes later, after Alistair had left off smirking and was checking his watch again. (It was no use checking his phone, even assuming it hadn’t died, he knew. Not in _this_ lead-lined lift.) “So . . . I flirted with you a little to pass the time during an interminable ride—little did I know _how_ interminable—in a shoddy lift.” Daelyn rolled his eyes then bit his lip, glancing around at the walls again with suspicious eyes. “Can’t be the first time some bloke on a lift’s tried to make a little time with you.”

 

His own brows lifting in surprise, Alistair smiled. “It’s not. But it’s by far the most memorable.”

 

“I’ll second that,” Daelyn muttered. Then a comfortable, if charged silence fell between them, during which Alistair stole glances at Daelyn, and Daelyn peered at Alistair from the corners of his pretty eyes.

 

“Soooooo,” Alistair finally drew out reluctantly, looking down at his knees, his attaché, his shoes—anything to avoid Daelyn’s intent gaze. “If this silly lift hadn’t malfunctioned . . . would you, after re-tying my tie, have asked for my number?”

 

A beat. Then Daelyn was laughing, long and loud, until Alistair wished the lift floor would open and swallow him whole.

 

“I very well might have, after all,” Daelyn allowed, still laughing—giggling, really. “If I learned nothing from my time dating Zevran Arainai, it was how to be ridiculously forward with strange men and make it work for me!”

 

Daring a look over at Daelyn, Alistair’s heart descended from his throat and the churning of his stomach slowed. The other man was leaning back against the anterior wall of the lift, his fingers at his throat, undoing the straps of his helmet. In seconds, it was in the messenger bag, which sat between them. Alistair had assumed that despite the platinum dreads, Daelyn might have dark roots—after all, how many natural platinum blonds were there in the world, outside of Iceland?—but Daelyn’s roots were as blond as the rest of his dreaded hair, his eyebrows, and lashes. . . .

 

“What?” Daelyn asked curiously, having caught Alistair staring. Alistair almost looked away, but held the other man’s gaze, despite the horrible flush he knew was creeping up his neck to spread across his face like wild-fire.

 

“Nothing, just . . . cursing my luck.”

 

“The luck of being trapped in a lift with some claustrophobic bike-courier?”

 

Aiming a limp smile at his knees, Alistair shrugged. “The luck of being trapped in a lift with a claustrophobic bike-courier who’s probably changed his mind about asking for my number.”

 

The silence that followed this admission was startled . . . but not displeased.

 

“I thought you were going to have a fit when I was sounding you out, earlier,” Daelyn said lightly. “You looked like I’d offered to drop to my knees for you or something, instead of just offering to fix that dodgy Windsor!”

 

“I . . . I thought 'fixing the Windsor' might be a euphemism, or something.” Alistair’s face was _really_ up in flames, now.

 

“Oh, is that so?” Daelyn leaned closer, his big, grey-green eyes mischievous and teasing. “A euphemism for what?”

 

“I don’t _know_ , for what . . . only,” Alistair took a deep breath and let it out shakily, gazing at his pale reflection in its now-askew and wrinkled grey suit. “I only know what I’d thought— _stupidly hoped_ it _might_ be a euphemism for.”

 

There was a rustle of cloth as Daelyn shifted his messenger bag to his other side and did some scooting of his own, until there was but a bare few inches between himself and Alistair.

 

“And what _had_ you hoped it might be a euphemism for?” he asked, low and breathless. Alistair didn’t dare look at him, now. Afraid that he’d see mischief and teasing . . . and nothing else.

 

“Daelyn,” he began in his most pleasantly neutral tone and shaking his head. “Is now _really_ the time for true confessions? I mean, the moment’s well and truly passed, hasn’t it?”

 

When Daelyn didn’t answer for more than a minute, Alistair girded himself and met the other man’s gaze. It was curious again . . . unexpectedly solemn and . . . heated.

 

“Daelyn?”

 

“Hush, Alistair,” the courier said gently, leaning in closer, until the tip of his pointy, Patrician nose brushed Alistair’s and his citrus-clean breath puffed on Alistair’s slightly parted lips. For a few seconds, those marvelous eyes were Alistair’s universe . . . then, they were fluttering shut. “Moments are what we make of them.”

 

The very last word of that statement was more a brush of soft, tart lips pressing Alistair’s lightly, but for eternal moments. Daelyn only pulled away when Alistair groaned low in his throat and inhaled sharply through his nose, instinctively intensifying the contact.

 

“ _Wow_ ,” Daelyn exhaled, taking the word—as well as the breath—right out of Alistair’s mouth. Which left _Alistair_ with nothing to do but gape and blush. And, of course, stare at Daelyn’s pretty, pouty mouth.

 

“L-Look,” he managed to stammer out, trying to remember himself, his circumstances, and his _reason_. “I know being stuck in this lift is . . . _harrowing_ for you, but I’d rather _not_ be used as a distraction, this way. I think—”

 

“Far too much, that’s clear,” Daelyn retorted with an arch look, before reaching out to cup Alistair’s face in his large, cool hands. His thumbs stroked Alistair’s cheeks gently as he searched Alistair’s eyes. “ _Talk_ too much, too.”

 

“Daelyn—” the rest of Alistair’s rebuttal was smothered in another kiss, this one with open mouths and teasing flickers of Daelyn’s citrus-tasting tongue. Alistair, torn between what he wanted and what was right and honorable and rational, merely sat there, letting Daelyn kiss him with increasing ardor, never responding until—with a soft, disappointed sigh—Daelyn broke the kiss and started to sit back.

 

Something within Alistair roared its ultimate frustration and, as if some restraint within him broke, be it propriety or common sense or self-control, he found himself following after Daelyn—all but lunging forward into another kiss. Unlike the kisses Daelyn had initiated, this one was hard and hungry, possessive and thorough. It took all and gave no quarter.

 

 _Alistair_ took what he’d been wanting from the moment Daelyn first quirked that crooked half-smile at him. And took it. And took it.

 

And took it, some more.

 

“Alistair?” Daelyn gasped, when he was let up for air, some unknowable time later. His arms were wrapped around Alistair’s neck and they were prone, half-on Daelyn’s lumpy messenger bag. The latter’s legs were bracketing Alistair’s hips as Alistair lay atop him, grinding his way to an _epic_ hard-on, and panting and nuzzling Daelyn’s neck. That citrus-mint-herbal scent was . . . intoxicating to the point that Alistair knew that forever-after, just a stroll through an herb garden would probably make him hard. “Fuck _me_ , what in the bloody _He_ —”

 

“ _Shut up_ , Daelyn,” Alistair mumbled into another kiss, this one warring and aggressive because Daelyn gave as good as he got. Alistair was no longer the only one grinding and shimmying his way to full arousal. They were, at last, on the same wavelength. On Daelyn’s messenger bag and on the floor of the lift.

 

“This is _utterly_ _mad_ , y’know?” Daelyn puffed out on Alistair’s temple, when the other man’s kisses turned from his lips, to his throat—became sharp, no doubt _bruising_ love-bites that left Daelyn gasping again.

 

“You started it.” Alistair nipped and licked and sucked at salty-sweet skin, one arm bearing some of his weight up off Daelyn, the other slipping between them to feel for the erection that throbbed so hot and persistent against his own.

 

“Buh- _loody_ Hell! And you’re _finishin’_ it, aren’t ya, mate?”

 

“Mm . . . speaking of . . . hand? Or mouth?” Alistair asked as he cupped and squeezed Daelyn through his damp cycling shorts.

 

“Wh-which do I want?” Daelyn gritted out as if self-control was almost a foregone conclusion. Alistair sat up just enough to look down into dazed, glazed eyes.

 

“No, where do you prefer to _finish_?”

 

Daelyn’s mouth made a small, shocked “O,” then the smaller man was grinning.

 

“Utterly mad,” he declared, bobbing up to plant a kiss on Alistair’s kiss-swollen lips. “Utterly. _Mad_.”

 

“As March hares,” Alistair agreed, scrabbling at Daelyn’s waistband and shoving his hand down the shorts —no inconvenient Y-fronts or jockies to navigate, thank Heaven, just coarse pubic hair and damp, smooth skin—taking hold of Daelyn’s rather girthy prick. All it took to have the courier moaning and arching up into Alistair, was a few tight strokes, with alternating swipes of Alistair’s thumb across the wet tip.

 

“Fuck!” Daelyn cried out, flopping back down to the messenger bag and floor, writhing sinuously as he drove his hot, hard flesh into Alistair’s accommodating hand. His eyes were squinched tight-shut. “You—oh, _fuck_!”

 

“Only if you happen to have lube in that messenger bag,” Alistair informed the swearing courier. This was worth a breathless laugh.

 

“Oh, if I did, you’d already be on your stomach, Alistair Grey of Chantry, Circle & Warden.”

 

Alistair groaned, his hand stuttering around Daelyn’s prick. But he quickly found his rhythm again. “You’re a top?”

 

“I’m a _switch_ . . . among other things, thanks to my ex . . . kinky fucker.” Daelyn snorted fondly and opened his eyes. “Why? You a bottom?”

 

“Perhaps. For the right man.”

 

“That’s . . . well. You on your stomach, me on mine, it’s all good to me. Though I must admit,” Daelyn said, reaching up to pull Alistair closer . . . close enough to whisper heatedly in his ear: “I must admit to wanting to ride you like a pogo-stick. _Desperately_.”

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Alistair breathed, taking a page from Daelyn’s profane book. The younger man chuckled.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“What time are you off?”

 

“Gimme just a few more strokes, and we’ll see. . . .”

 

“No, I mean—off work?”

 

Daelyn blinked up at Alistair surprised. Then smiled, slow and wondering. “Off at half-four. Not home ‘til quarter past five, usually.”

 

“And home is. . . .?”

 

Daelyn groaned. “Not someplace I like to bring . . . guests.”

 

“Parents?”

 

“Flatmates.” Daelyn winced and sighed. “Disgustingly happy, _affianced_ ones, who’ll assume that you and I are soulmates and ask invasive, embarrassing questions about how we met. Lily and Jowan have no bloody chill.”

 

“Right.” Alistair made a face. “Right, well . . . _I’m_ off at six. Wanna meet at mine and . . . get properly acquainted? _My_ flatmate is spending the next few days at her girlfriend’s.”

 

Daelyn’s pale brows lifted and his smile turned into a grin. “A few days, huh? Alright, then. We meet at yours—wherever _that_ is—around half-six?”

 

“Better make it seven. I’ll have to stay late to make up work,” Alistair recalled, sighing irritably. Then he put work decidedly to the back of his mind. “Anyway,” he purred, leaning down to capture Daelyn’s mouth in a lewd, languorous kiss that left them both moaning. “Where were we?”

 

“Right about . . . _here_ ,” Daelyn answered, bucking his hips up and pushing his prick through Alistair’s somewhat loosened grip, which obligingly tightened . . . but only for a moment.

 

“Actually,” Alistair drawled, letting go of Daelyn’s erection, which garnered him an unhappy squawk. Then, he was scrambling back down Daelyn’s body, taking the cycling shorts down with him, baring Daelyn’s wet, red, upright prick to the air. He met wide, wondering eyes and grinned. “I think we were about to be _here_.”

 

And with that, Alistair swooped down on Daelyn’s groin like a falcon on a squirrel, taking the gasping, swearing man’s prick into his mouth and partway down his throat.

 

He managed to deepthroat Daelyn several times—gagging twice, but then, it’d been a long time since he’d done this and Daelyn was, by no means, as . . . compact as the rest of him might suggest—before the other man’s moans and thrashing alerted him to an imminent orgasm. Alistair forsook depth of swallowing for speed of blowing, knowing that Daelyn was on the edge and ready to fall over.

 

Alistair pinned the courier’s narrow hips to the floor and doubled-down on his ministrations until instinct and Daelyn’s sharp, high cry had him sliding off just enough to catch Daelyn’s copious release in his mouth. And down his chin. And more than a few dribbles on the expensive necktie Leliana had given him. . . .

 

“Oh . . . blimey. . . .” Daelyn croaked out, panting hard.

 

BING! Went the lift as the emergency lights flickered out, the real lights flickered back _on_ , and the lift started to move upward for a few seconds . . . before stopping.

 

Wide-eyed, Alistair and Daelyn looked at each other. Then at the matte-chrome doors as they slid open.

 

“Oh, _my_!” said an older, well-dressed woman at the front of the small crowd waiting just beyond the open doors leading into Orlais, Inc. “What on _Earth_?”

 

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake!_ ” exclaimed Daelyn, quite aggrievedly, flinging an arm over his eyes. “What even is my life, today?”

 

And Alistair. . . .

 

Well, Alistair simply sat on his heels for long moments, didn’t he? Saying nothing—nothing at all—before discreetly swallowing. After all, his mum’d taught him better than to speak when his mouth was full.

 

END 

**Author's Note:**

> See me flail on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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